Title: Public city
Director: Yumin Kim
Description of the theme & the setting
What is the most public space in a city? My hypothesis is that the most public space is the lobby. In fact, I believe that the lobby is qualified to be considered the most ‘public’ of all spaces. Unlike private spaces that are only accessible to the inhabitants of the city, the lobby can be accessed by both natives and foreigners alike. In a way, the lobby is, inherently, more encompassing than other spaces. For example, the lobby apparently does not have the privacy of the apartment. The park, while used by many people, cannot be said to have the publicity of the lobby for two reasons: the park is mostly used by the inhabitants of the city and the role of it is much more limited than that of the lobby, which often performs a variety of functions at the same time. Contrary to popular belief, even the MTR passage, the elevator, or the bus stop is not as public as the lobby, as meaningful interactions (casual chats, conversations, and et cetera) are more likely to be performed in the lobby than in such bustling spaces where silence and indifference often reign.
As I conducted my research, I found out the fact that this role of the lobby as a public space has not changed in the age of Covid-19. The video intends to explore this aspect of the hotel lobby. The setting of the video is the Peninsula Hong Kong, which I have selected owing to the special place it occupies in the imagination of travelers. As will be shown in the video, I have shown, for example, how the lobby is so structured as to facilitate conversation.
Method of conducting research & producing the video
For research, I visited the Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel and took a 20-second video that could effectively demonstrate my hypothesis. Throughout the research, I was deeply influenced by my experience in 2014, when I visited Hong Kong for the first time in my life. At the time, I was attracted to this often-neglected feature of the lobby. To the average traveler, the most important space, to the exclusion of the airport, is the hotel lobby. Without a doubt, The Hong Kong International Airport can be called ‘the face of Hong Kong,’ but the same epithet can be attached to such prominent hotels as the Peninsula Hong Kong. One may even go so far as to argue that the impression of Hong Kong is defined by what you see in the lobby of the hotel at which you are staying: people from different cultural backgrounds, their alien languages and locutions, the architecture (often representative of the city’s aesthetic philosophy) of the lobby, the atmosphere, and et cetera. The hotel lobby, as does a public museum, collects and displays numerous things that symbolize the essence of the city, and the traveler, as he enters the lobby, perceives them in one glance and forefeels what the city is going to offer. When I entered the lobby of the hotel where I was going to stay with my parents, I was surprised by this unexpected publicity of the lobby and by the judiciousness with which the hotel took advantage of this special aspect of the lobby. In the process of producing the video, I have made efforts to reflect my experience. In addition to this, I have tried to relate my findings to the concept of public space developed by Habermas and focused on the transformation of the role of the lobby, using Edward Hopper’s painting as an example.
During the production of the video, I struggled with the editing program. At first, I was going to experiment with a variety of editing techniques, but, due to my unfamiliarity with technology in general, I could not help but limit myself to a few relatively elementary techniques. I avoided including special effects, since I feared that a careless use of special effects would make my video look disorganized.
Reflections
I enjoyed my investigation. After this, I could get a deeper understanding of the role of the lobby and its importance as a public space. I regret that I could not include more theoretical stuff in my video due to time constraints and that I had to limit myself to a rather superficial discussion of the lobby.
Citations
Cox, R. (2020, October 1). Sai Ying Pun in Hong Kong – the trendy, the dynamic and the historic district revitalized. A City Made By People. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.acitymadebypeople.com/articles/2019/2/26/sai-ying-pun-in-hong-kong-the-trendy-the-dynamic-and-the-historic-district-revitalized
Habermas Jürgen. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inqiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. Polity Press.
Hopper, E. (n.d.). Hotel Lobby. Hotel Lobby, 1943 by Edward Hopper. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.edwardhopper.net/hotel-lobby.jsp
Urban Design and Mental Health in Hong Kong. Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.urbandesignmentalhealth.com/journal4-hk-case-study.html
Name: Yumin Kim
UID: 3035745740
Different functions and roles of lobby are introduced in this video, making it really informative. The messages of the video are mainly conveyed through vocal narration which is really clear but not as attractive as visual ones. I suggest putting some other lobby interiors and allow audience to imagine and understand lobby. Maybe it can be put in the end of the video. This enables more room for imagination and interaction with audience.